Giving Members Auto Credits for Self Service?

I've just purchased amember and am trying to work through the installation and setup. I have set it up in Wordpress. I have a site that sells art patterns and video tutorials. I am interested in the self-service add-on and have questions about it.

Here's what I'd like to do:

Have 2 membership products:

• Basic member - access less content
• Premium member - access more content

Then I would like to have additional content (sort of a store) which the 2 levels of members can access through a self-service system of credits. I'd like to give basic member 2 credits per month and premium members 6 credits per month which they could use to 'purchase' access to additional content in the store. This content is art patterns in downloadable pdf files.

Sorry this gets very confusing when amember refers to the membership levels as 'products', and I keep thinking of them as membership levels and the content as products.

Questions:

1. Could I set it up to automatically generate credits each month to the active members based on their level, or would I have to add these manually to each members account. I assume when someone first signs up they can earn the initial month's credits with their purchase. But I'd like to continue on and have them get additional credits each month. Do credits get generated for recurring payments? But then I also have those who pay and annual fee once a year.
2. Would I set the additional content up as individual products to be purchased and added to the users account?

I hope this is understandable. Still trying to wrap my mind around the configuration of the member site. I'm transitioning from PaidMembership Pro.

Thanks. I'll purchase the module and get it installed, then I''l contact you when I get ready to work on a custom solution.

How did this all work out for you in the end?

I'm wanting to implement a similar solution with Audio download.

Shahn, it's worked out great for me. I give the credits at time of payment based on membership level and payment plan, so annual payments get a lump of credits at the start and monthly subscribers get their credits added to their account each time their monthly payment is completed. If a member has credits, they will see a tab in their Dashboard that says "Self-Service Library". When they select that tab, it opens a list of available products which they can buy with their credits, and also shows how many credits they have in their account.

After setting it up, the amember support folks were very obliging to make programing changes to include images in the self-service library so it looks like a shopping cart (when I started it just showed the titles). They also set up a way to sort by drag and drop. I have my site set it up, so when someone makes a 'purchase' with their credits the download link shows up in a "My Download Links" tab in their dashboard. I think once they use credits for an item it's removed from the list of available products they see in the self-service library. The only other improvement I would like to have is a way to sort items into categories like the shopping cart store. As my self-service library grows, it's cumbersome for members to scroll 100+ entries to find the one they are looking for.

I also have use the shopping cart store setup for non-members to make individual purchases, so first I add new products to my store, then under the self-service library admin I can pull that same product into the s-s library. I can also assign a smaller number of credits when these products are purchased as a rewards system for shoppers that don't pay a membership fee.

My site is sharonchinn.com if you want to take a look.

I just purchased the self-service module. Will I be able to click to add it from my aMember dashboard or do I have to install it to my site somehow?

Thanks,
Dvorah